I’ll work as hard as I can for children, says Mayor

THE new Mayor of Henley says she will always campaign for young people to have the best opportunities.

Michelle Thomas, 53, received the chain of office from her predecessor Sarah Miller during the mayor-making ceremony at the town hall last month.

She said: “When I had kids, I realised I couldn’t think just about me anymore and it changed me as a person — I wanted to do more and I started thinking about the community and how to make it a better place for them.

“I was more aware of the future and wanted it to be better for them but I realise that I can only take it one day at a time.

“During my year as Mayor I am hoping to work as hard as I can for children and young people in Henley — I will always make them a priority.”

Councillor Thomas, who lives in Belle Vue Road with her husband David Horsley and children, Tom, 16, and Eleanor, 13, started her first community campaign in 2015.

This was prompted by the purchase of L A Fitness, a former gym and pool off Newtown Road, by Henthames, of Essex, which secured planning permission to demolish it and build an 80-bed care home.

She led a residents’ pressure group called Keep Henley Active and campaigned to save it.

As a result, the town council agreed to register an interest in buying the site.

Cllr Thomas said: “I went to a council meeting to discuss the potential closure of L A Fitness because my daughter was learning to swim there, together with 265 other children.

“I realised I was at the wrong meeting because I didn’t know what the structure of the council was.

“The councillors were very nice though and politely said, ‘You are in the wrong place’ but said that there was definitely something I could do.

“We could register it as a community asset, so I teamed up with another person and we decided we would try to register it.

“We decided to get the public involved and created a petition to save the gym and pool that was signed by 1,300 people.”

The land was listed as an asset of community value following a public outcry over the sale, meaning the local community had to be given a chance to buy the site if it was offered for sale.

However, South Oxfordshire District Council’s planning committee granted permission for the care home, saying there was enough leisure provision elsewhere and the care home would meet the growing needs of an aging population.

The Henley Manor care home has since been built on the land.

Cllr Thomas, who now chairs the council’s planning committee, said: “I learnt a lot about planning applications during that campaign — I’d always thought it would take two months to get it through but this took three years and by the time it was heard some of the people who had campaigned with me had left and the district council decided it should be turned into a care home.

“They decided not to save it and go against their own policy and it was lost forever.

“But for me it was a way of getting to know the town councillors very well and they were always very helpful.

“One of them said to me, ‘You’d make a very good councillor’ but I said, ‘Oh no, I could never do anything like that’ because I didn’t think I had the time.”

In 2017, she started campaigning for better funding for schools in Henley and two years later, as a newly-elected councillor, she organised a protest march to demand more money for schools.

This came after it was revealed that Gillotts School was having to spend money intended for pupils’ education on maintaining its
buildings.

Cllr Thomas said: “Funding from central government for schools has always been quite insufficient but then it got even worse.

“I went to the councillors again because I wanted them to support our schools and our children and ensure something was done to improve funding.

“That is when I got involved and teamed up with another parent and we put together a march for better funding for schools.”

Hundreds of people marched through the streets of Henley to demand fairer funding for schools.

Cllr Thomas led the march together with her husband and daughter Eleanor, who was 10 at the time, and then Mayor and fellow Henley Residents Group councillor Ken Arlett.

They carried a banner reading “Education needs money now”. The march came just days after the Government announced a new
£14 billion package to boost school funding but many parents present said this wasn’t enough.

Henley MP John Howell, who presented two petitions demanding increased funding for schools in the Henley area to Parliament that year, attended the march. He told the protesters that as a result of the petitions, campaigners had got a lot of what they had asked for.

But Cllr Thomas didn’t agree and resolved to do more in her role as a councillor to support young people and their education.

She said: “I stood for council for the first time in 2018 but didn’t get elected and in 2019, I thought ‘Should I do it again? Is there a point?’

“I decided I would give it one more go — I wanted to do it for the schools and I thought that if I didn’t get selected that time, I wouldn’t do it again.

“Signing the oath when I became a councillor felt really special and shortly afterwards I got to chair a meeting with residents and parents to explore what to do next for the schools in Henley. I feel that is when it all started and I’ve not looked back since.

“Before you become a councillor you really don’t know what to expect — you feel like you have a lot of responsibility.

“Now becoming Mayor, you feel like you have to be as impartial as possible and be there to support everyone no matter what.

“I think a lot of it is learning on the job — there’s only so much you can learn from just attending the meetings and there is a lot of background reading you need too.

“When I started chairing the planning committee it was during the pandemic and we moved from the council chambers to going live on YouTube.

“I was just cutting my teeth and learning all the words that needed to be used during a planning meeting and I understood that the secret was to prepare, prepare, prepare.

“But the reason I joined the council was because I liked helping people and I loved this community.”

The two causes she has chosen to campaign and fundraise for during her mayoral year are a “covid catch-up” fund for the town’s four state primary schools and Greener Henley’s idea of a new climate and nature hub in the centre of Henley.

Cllr Thomas said: “These initiatives are about the community and trying to bring us together more while doing something good for the future of Henley.

“I have to admit I’m really nervous about raising money because I’ve never done it before but I’m hoping people will get behind it and donate.”

She has also set up the Henley Volunteer Network on Facebook and this will be officially launched later this year.

She will also be supporting the campaign for more palliative care beds in South Oxfordshire, which was started by her fellow HRG councillors Stefan Gawrysiak and Ian Reissmann following the closure of the Sue Ryder hospice in Nettlebed two years ago.

Now the nearest palliative care beds for Henley residents is the Duchess of Kent Hospice in Tilehurst, Reading. Following pressure from councillors and campaigners, the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group agreed to provide two beds in Wallingford but these do not offer specialist care.

Cllr Thomas said: “We don’t think that is enough. There’s no taking away from Sue Ryder’s ‘hospice at home’ service, which is amazing, but I think everyone has a right to die as they want.

“That hospice provided an irreplaceable service that needs to continue.”